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Your source material is the people you know, not those you don’t know, but every character is an extension of the author’s own personality.

Edward Albee

Audiences and, to a large extent, critics who want less from theater than it is possible for it to give. If everybody’s encouraged to want less, you’ll end up with less.
EDWARD ALBEE

Audience Criticism Encouragement End Theatre Yourself
Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.
EDWARD ALBEE

Himself Play Stage
The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt that it didn’t matter.
EDWARD ALBEE

Act Feeling Optimism Trouble Writing Yourself
The characters’ lives have gone on before the moment you chose to have the action of the play begin. And their lives are going to go on after you have lowered the final curtain on the play, unless you’ve killed them off.
EDWARD ALBEE

Action Character Live Lower Moments Yourself
I think I was probably wondering, having looked at human beings for a long time, wondering if evolution ever took place. And I still have my doubts.
EDWARD ALBEE

Doubt Evolution Human Myself Place Thinking Time Wonder
I am pleased and reassured by the fact that a lot of younger playwrights seem to pay me some attention and gain some nourishment from what I do.
EDWARD ALBEE

Attention Fact Myself Nourishment Pay Play Please Reassurance Young
All serious art is being destroyed by commerce. Most people don’t want art to be disturbing. They want it to be escapist. I don’t think art should be escapist. That’s a waste of time.
EDWARD ALBEE

Art Commerce Destroy Disturbance Escape People Serious Wasted Time
What I mean by an educated taste is someone who has the same tastes that I have.
EDWARD ALBEE

Education Myself Preference Taste
A lot interests me – but nothing surprises me particularly.
EDWARD ALBEE

Interest Myself Surprise
The only time I’ll get good reviews is if I kill myself.
EDWARD ALBEE

Goodness Kill Myself Review Time
The arts are the only things that separate us from the other animals. The arts are not decorative. They are essential to our comprehension of consciousness and ourselves.
EDWARD ALBEE

Animal Art Conscious Decorative Essential Ourselves Separate
American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.
EDWARD ALBEE

Criticism Death Facility
Your source material is the people you know, not those you don’t know, but every character is an extension of the author’s own personality.
EDWARD ALBEE

Author Character Extension Material People Personality Source Yourself
Writing has got to be an act of discovery. Finding out things about what one is writing about.
EDWARD ALBEE

Act Discovery Finding Oneself Writing
I have learned that neither kindness or cruelty by themselves, or independent of each other, create any effect beyond themselves.
EDWARD ALBEE

Beyond Creation Cruelty Effect Independent Kindness Learning Myself
Anything you put in a play – any speech – has got to do one of two things: either define character or push the action of the play along.
EDWARD ALBEE

Action Definition Oneself Play

Your source material is the people you know, not those you don’t know, but every character is an extension of the author’s own personality.

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Your source material is the people you know, not those you don’t know, but every character is an extension of the author’s own personality.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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